


The Illusion of Time

by Faith_Ren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Past Lives, Plans For The Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 13:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15797160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faith_Ren/pseuds/Faith_Ren
Summary: "I know that when the time comes, you'll be the one to turn. You'll stand with me, Rey. I saw who your parents are.". . ."I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart. Ben, when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You'll turn. I'll help you."- -It was a moment that changed their lives forever.What Kylo Ren saw in Rey's past, and what Rey saw in Kylo Ren's future.Written for the Crylo Boot Camp Challenge.





	1. Chapter 1

 

**PART I: Rey** _  
_

_Let the past die._

_\- -_

As her face brimmed with emotion, with tears that had just begun to slowly spill, the flickering flames reflected and refracted against the warm golden flecks in her irises and Kylo wondered how he’d never noticed that her eyes sparkled as brilliantly as Alderaanian emeralds. 

She looked so young – so _profoundly_ young – and in that moment, he would’ve given anything and everything to have held her close, to wipe the wetness from her face, to murmur quiet promises of peace in her ear. 

“You’re not alone,” he said softly instead. 

“Neither are you,” Rey replied. 

She had bared herself to him, sat before him exposed and vulnerable and bare, dressed in nothing but faith and compassion and gentleness.   

He’d seen her like this before, but only in dreams. 

Was she truly _willing_ , after all that had happened, after all that he had _done?_  

He winced at the abrupt burst of unadulterated hope within his chest, a painful explosion that felt foreign and yet full.  

His heart’s cadence chanted excitedly to him. _Accept her (thump thump) … Believe her (thump thump) … Trust her (thump thump)._  

But his heart had told him many things over the years, had encouraged him to act upon certain things and make certain choices that had caused him nothing but inner turmoil and perpetual pain. 

His head, on the other hand, had always served as a counterbalance to the foolhardy hopefulness of his spirit, had always steered him away from those who downplayed and used his powers –  _Skywalker_  – and toward those who had provided him with power and passion – _Snoke_. 

As he ran his eyes over her features, from her sun-speckled forehead to the creases in her almond eyes to her small button nose to her moist and rosy lips, Kylo found that his mind had failed him where it usually had not: it remained completely and utterly quiet, which only served to amplify his soul’s rhythmic urging.

_Touch her (thump thump) … Show her (thump thump) … Love her (thump thump)._

His pulse pounded at his temples and he held his breath as Rey slowly extended her hand toward him. Willing the nausea in his belly to subside, Kylo studied her hand; it looked so small, childlike even, dwarfed by his overly large palm and long fingers, which trembled with nervous anticipation as he pulled off his Corellian leather glove and reached out to her in turn. 

Her fingertips were rough and calloused from years of scavenging in the harsh Jakku badlands, and he felt a pang of guilt as he realized how soft his own must be, moisturized by the finest high-end lotions the galaxy had to offer, all sourced directly from the many planets within the First Order’s oversight. 

But her touch felt so welcomingly _warm_ , felt so earnest and so true and so caring that he realized what she was willing to do for him, what she would willingly give to him. 

In that moment, he had found beautiful deliverance within her very soul. 

And then the fire between them abruptly darkened and the hut in which they sat disappeared altogether. 

. . .

  
“No!” 

The voice was shrill but familiar. Kylo wiped the budding beads of sweat from his forehead, squinting in the blinding light of the harsh glare overhead sun. His eyes slowly came into focus and he saw her, no older than five, freckled and small and fighting uselessly to rip her tiny arm from the unforgiving grip of a hulking and grotesque Crolute. 

“ _Quiet_ , girl,” alien gurgled disdainfully. 

She paid no attention. 

Her desperate protestations strained toward a pair of figures in the near distance. Kylo eyed their backs as they walking away sloppily, clumsily shuffling across the shifting sands beneath their feet. He watched with disdain as the young woman stumbled into the man next to her, sending both into fits of cackling laughter. 

“Mama, Papa!” 

Kylo’s heart sunk further and further, lower and lower, as the pair continued on their merrily drunken way, without so much as a backwards glance at their discarded daughter.

Rey had begun weeping uncontrollably, her small body trembling with the most horrifying guttural sobs he’d ever heard.

“Please, come back!” 

Her cries echoed within his mind, replaying over and over, and Kylo’s vision began to bleed bright red, his veins bursting with molten revulsion and raw rage. His thudding heart pumped adrenaline through his entirety, surging and setting free his _own_ memories that had long been forgotten, memories with murky details but vivid with emotion. 

_Hopelessness._

_Abandonment._

_Agony._

_Hatred._  

A lifetime of fantastic pain and unfulfilled promises … 

He was plunged into frigid blackness. 

Kylo shivered but remained soundless and still as his sight gradually adjusted to the darkness. He was surrounded by a moonlit sea of endless sand, interrupted only by a series of hilly dunes off in the far distance. The setting was unremarkable, at best. 

What  _did_ catch his attention was the enormous crater in front of him, the edge of which he stood perilously close to. He gritted his teeth and steeled his balance before backing away from the pit slowly, all the while warily eyeing the dozens of unmoving bodies within, their arms and legs strewn about haphazardly at awkward and unnatural angles.

“This one didn’t last long.”

Kylo glanced to his right, where a filthy man with a strange accent was rolling a heavy sack of … _something_ particularly heavy … across the barren and bleak dunes. 

Correction: the sack was actually a body. 

Further: it was the body of a young woman; he could tell from the gentle slope of her jaw and from the narrowness of her waist.   

The man’s counterpart grunted with effort as he reached down and grabbed a second body: a young well-built man, his mid-length brown hair matted with dried blood and bits of debris. “Neither did this ‘un,” he said, dragging the body carelessly behind him. “Fucking offworlders.” 

And the two grave diggers cackled with glee as they unceremoniously flung Rey’s parents into the mass grave, where they landed in unison with a sickening _thud_. 

Kylo hung his head and heaved. 

And then time and place shifted once more.

  
. . .  
 

The sandy terrain and the hell pit of the dead had given way to a dark residence of some sort, and relief flooded him as he inhaled deeply and no longer smelled the rotting heap of decomposing bodies – he had been unsure as to how much more he could take. 

Kylo frowned at the durasteel bulkhead before him, taking a step closer to more easily study the white score marks covering the wall’s full height and more than half its length. There were hundreds – no, _thousands_ – of them, each carving all fairly uniform in size and organized into straight rows. He ran the pads of his fingers along them, wondering who had made them and what they were for.

A dull thud at the room’s entryway alerted him to someone’s arrival.

Rey was older now – in her mid-teens, if he had to guess. Her tattered and soiled tunic was nearly identical to the ensemble she’d worn as a child, her hair was parted into the same three-bun style.  

She rested a makeshift but sturdy staff against the threshold and lifted the goggles from her face, muttering with frustration as she shook a nearly-impossible amount of sand from the strap and visor before flinging them onto the lumpy mattress in the far corner. 

He regarded her warily as she walked toward the white-marked bulkhead, toward _exactly where he stood._ She stopped to stand next to him, so close that he could feel the heat of her body, could smell the dried sweat in her hair, could count each of her delicate and fluttering eyelashes. He ran his gaze along the easy slope of her petite nose and the gentle curvature of her lips, tracing imaginary lines between the light brown freckles that cascaded down her neck and past her clavicles, disappearing underneath the fabric of her tunic. 

But her eyes ...

It was her _eyes_ that had always spoken to him, and it was her eyes that whispered so much to him, even now, even here: they were dim and dull and gloomy, their usual light lifeless and dreary. 

Rey withdrew a rusty and ancient macrofuser from her pocket, using its sharp welding tip as a pointed instrument to etch another tally mark upon the wall.

And that was when he knew. 

He knew that she’d made these marks. 

He knew that she’d spent the last ten years counting the days since she last saw her parents. 

He knew that she’d still believed they’d return, that all was not lost, that they would be reunited once again and that her life would then begin anew. 

But he knew that it was all a lie.

Her parents would never return. 

They’d sold her for an extra credit or two, had given up their only daughter for a couple of drinks at Niima Outpost’s cheapest dive bar. 

Her parents were dead and buried in a grave along with hundreds of other derelict outlaws and bottom-feeders. 

Her parents hadn’t deserved her to begin with.   

Kylo’s soul _shattered_.

His own upbringing had been less than _ideal_ , as it were, but never had he seen parents dispose of their own _child_ so callously and with such nonchalance. At the very least, he knew his parents had somewhat cared, had loved him in some ways, even if they were limited and saturated in fear and misunderstanding. 

And at least _he_ had been the one to leave _them_. 

But it didn’t matter. 

Because he would not forsake _her_. 

Not now.

Not _ever_.

 

. . .


	2. Chapter 2

** PART II: Ren **

_Always in motion is the future._  

\- -

  
Kylo Ren was bouncing a child on his knee.  
  
The scenario was so preposterous, so implausible, that she wouldn’t have believed it had she not been _literally watching it happen_ , right in front of her, as real and genuine as flesh and bone.  
  
The hut had all but abruptly disappeared, sending her tumbling into a vision unlike any she’d ever had. She was flung away from the warmth of the fire and the electricity of Kylo’s touch. She could no longer smell the dampness of Ahch-To’s cold rains, nor could she hear the harsh winds whistling in between the fractured bricks of the hut.  
  
She was standing in a plush field on a planet not dissimilar from Takodana, and Rey couldn’t help but smile at the soft breeze that tickled her nose and feathered gently through her hair. She inhaled deeply, greedily, relishing the fresh scent of the crisp pristine air. Her tense muscles relaxed at the simplistic peacefulness of this place, wherever it was. The natural beauty was something she had seen only in the few holovods she’d been able to salvage from old scrap heaps on Jakku.  
  
A waterfall to her left, pristine and majestic, fed the bubbling creek that bobbled slowly by her. The soft sunlight skipped across its glittering surface and reflected against the bright, multi-color scales of the myriad aquatic animals living within it, none of which she could identify.  
  
The lavender treetops teemed with groups of winged creatures who sang cheerfully and melodically as they skipped from branch to branch, flitting their feathers and pruning themselves.   
  
She hadn’t been sure a planet like this actually existed, until now.   
  
It was the series of high-pitched giggles that initially drew her attention to him.   
  
He sat atop a flat low boulder only a few feet away, grinning goofily at the small, black-haired girl perched on his knee. His unforgiving and hollow features had mellowed, his usually domineering hands gentle and kind as he tickled the child’s belly, his eyes crinkling with laughter as she cried out with glee.  
  
Kylo brushed his long dark locks from his eyes with a free hand and looked up, spotting her immediately. He grinned at her, a half-grin so familiar it made her heart putter and skip to a halt.  
  
It was Han Solo’s grin. His father’s grin.   
  
“Rey.”  
  
His voice was different now, tender and patient, even as he worked to hold the stubbornly squirming toddler in place, holding her close to his chest so that she didn’t fall.   
  
She swallowed hard once, twice, three times, trying her best to dislodge the growing lump settling in the middle of her throat.   
  
His lighthearted expression faltered, slight but detectable, as he peered at her meaningfully. “Are you okay?”  
  
She stared at him dumbly, unsure of just how the HELL she was supposed to even BEGIN to answer that question.  
  
Kylo eyed her warmly as he hunched his broad shoulders and leaned down toward the squirming girl to plant a kiss on her forehead. “Leila,” he said tenderly, “go say hi to Mommy.”  
  
_Mommy?!_  
  
Kylo Ren was a _father._  
  
She bit her bottom lip and tried desperately not to laugh, wondering with gossipy interest as to who the _hell_  liked this man’s company enough to procreate with him.  
  
“Mommy!”  
  
With an overzealous jump, Leila hurled herself from her father, stumbling a few times as she excitedly rushed across the long dewy grass. She had inherited his thick hair, porcelain skin and full lips; her almond-shaped bright green eyes, button nose, and wide, toothy smile, however, did not belong to Kylo.  
  
They belonged to her.  
  
To Rey.  
  
_Oh .._.  
  
The girl flung her tiny little arms around her upper leg, peering up at her with identical eyes, her chubby cheeks rosy with excitement. “Mommy,” she said. “I want up.”  
  
Rey was frozen, incapable of movement or sound or coherent and rational thought. But Leila was growing impatient and she began to pout, her full mouth agitated, her bottom lip protruding.   
  
She looked just like him, just like her father.  
  
Just like Kylo.   
  
“Up,” she demanded, releasing Rey’s leg to reach up toward, her tiny arms waving impatiently. “Mommy, I want _up_.”  
  
She looked at her daughter with tears in her eyes, trying to figure out what to say even though she could not speak, trying comprehend even though she actually fully understood.   
  
Her chest filled with silent cries, and the world tilted.   
  
  
. . .  
  
  
“Ouch!” she growled as she landed firmly into the _Millennium Falcon’s_ torn and scruffy cockpit passenger seat.   
  
Kylo sat directly in front of her in the co-pilot position, his Force signature emanating distress and concern as his hands flitting adeptly but urgently across the naviboard. She gasped as the ship unexpectedly began teetering unnaturally through hyperspace, pitching so recklessly that, while she was fully aware this was only a vision, she couldn’t help but to instinctually grab onto the arm rests on each side of her, squeezing so tight her knuckles went white.  
  
“How about now?” came a shout from the bowels of the ship.   
  
The voice was muffled and distant, but she recognized it immediately, somehow, as her own.   
  
_Her_  voice.   
  
Rey’s voice.   
  
Her head buzzed with fuzzy static and her stomach toiled with sick nausea as she tried to make sense of it, of how this was happening, of what it all meant ...  
  
“Fuel line readings are still low and dropping steadily,” Kylo yelled in reply his narrowed eyes glued to the chronometer. “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working.”  
  
“Thanks for the tip,” Rey’s voice shot back snarkily.  
  
Kylo ignored her tone. “Did you check the stabilizers?”  
  
“ _Did I check the stabilizers?"_  Rey’s voice mocked in reply, and Kylo hissed as the _Falcon_ plunged into a nosedive. He flung his weight into the altitude joystick, his other hand flying to the opposite end of the naviboard to switch on the compressor module alignment system.  
  
“Well, _did_ you?” he snarled.   
  
“ _Of course I did!"_  Rey’s voice thundered, offended. “They were the _first thing I checked_ , Ben.”  
  
Kylo’s posture sharpened tensely upon hearing his name; he shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “What about the boosters?” he called.   
  
“Uh, let's see ...”  
  
Rey’s response was followed by a few loud clanks and a sharp hiss. “Nope, not those either.”  
  
The ship banked hard right, and Kylo cussed Huttese under his breath. “What about -"  
  
“Wait,” Rey interrupted, her voice filled with hopeful confidence. “I think I got it ... I got it!”  
  
Rey wasn't sure what she had done, but its effect was instantaneous: the _Falcon_ bucked and stalled as the entire ship lost power.

The cockpit was bathed in an eerie red glow as the backup generator kicked on, triggering the emergency lighting in order to conserve whatever energy remained.   
  
Kylo angrily slammed his hand against the dashboard with a strangled growl. “You sure about that, sweetheart?” he said spitefully, yelling as best he could over the shrieking life support alarms.  
  
“That’s _rich_ coming from you, Mister ‘ _Did You Check The Stabilizers_.’”  
  
“Oh, okay, _sure_.” Kylo grumbled to himself before loudly retorting, “Well, I’m not the one who -"  
  
“Power restored," interrupted a pleasant and peaceful mechanical voice.  

The piercing alarms gave way to calm quiet as the hyperdrive revved back to life, and the cockpit was once again bathed in full, standard lighting as the ship began to slowly right itself until it soon was sailing smoothly and soundlessly through space and time, its trajectory now firm and normal.  
  
Kylo leaned back in his seat with a heavy sigh of relief, and Rey heard herself erupt in a celebratory whoop.

She couldn't help but smile to herself: she had, once again, bested Kylo Ren at his own game.   
  
Rey watched herself amble triumphantly into the _Falcon’s_ cockpit smelling strongly of metallic chemicals, no doubt due to the black lubricant and engine oil that drenched her clothes and smudged across her forehead, cheeks and chin.  
  
“You were saying?” Rey asked, a smug smirk etched firmly across her lips.  
  
Kylo refused to take the bait. “What was it?” he asked curiously.   
  
Rey crossed her arms and leaned against the bulkhead. “The carbo-accelerator was putting too much pressure on the band limiter.”  
  
“Huh.”  
  
“Impressed?” Rey prodded teasingly, and Kylo shot her a sideways glance. 

“You’re filthy,” he commented.   
  
“So?” Rey challenged as Kylo rose to his feet and reached up to activate the overhead autopilot trigger with a quick flip of his wrist, turning his attentions away from the naviboard and toward Rey. He paused to run his eyes hungrily over each and every ounce of her body with a sly smirk.

What was he doing ...?

Oh.

_OH._

The realization of what was about to happen smacked her in the face like a hydrospanner traveling at top hyperspace speeds. Her face was suddenly hot and her neck was suddenly itchy, and she slunk as low as she could in her passenger seat, even though she knew neither party could see her nor was aware of her presence.  

She felt like a voyeur, as though she were interrupting someone else's incredibly ... _intimate_... moment, even though these were possibly  _her own future memories_. 

 _This can't be happening,_ she thought as she watched Kylo pin Rey against the bulkhead with his strong and large frame, his fingers running intently along her neck and tracing her collarbone lazily before dropping his large, sure hands down her chest, where he outlined each and every line and curve he could find. He wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her hips to his with a forceful thrust, snickering at the whine escaping from Rey's parted lips.  
  
“So,” he murmured, his voice low and raspy, “how about we get you out of those clothes and into the ‘fresher?”  
  
And then, again, everything changed.   
  
. . .  
  
She struggled to catch her breath, inhaling the strong scent of humid flora and heavy brine with each intake. A steady trickle of mist cascaded down her shoulders and dampened her brow. Rey wiped the warm raindrops from her eyes as she took stock of her surroundings.  
  
She was standing outside of a small cottage, cozy and creaky and placed precariously close to the edge of the nearby cliff, as if it had been dropped from the sky and remained there, steadfast and unchanged with the passage of time. The waves of the surrounding ocean collided rhythmically against the rocky terrain below, filling her ears with a continued roaring rush, making it nearly impossible to hear anything else.  
  
Her vision sharpened, compensating for her limited auditory abilities, and Rey spotted movement through one of the cottage’s windows. The figures were shadowy and imprecise due to the awkward angle of her current vantage point atop an arching graded slope about thirty feet away.  
  
She instinctually canvassed the perimeter, traipsing carefully through the red, tall grass and the thick, gelatinous mud that oozed into her boots with every sticky step.  
  
Rey assessed the situation warily, unsure of how much more she was willing to see, uncertain as to what all of this was supposed to mean or why it was happening or when it would end.   
  
But then, she heard it.   
  
Laughter.  
  
_Her_  laughter.  
  
_Genuine._  
  
_Easy._  
  
_Free._  
  
She needed to see.   
  
She to make sure it was her, needed to know who made her laugh, why she was laughing, _how_  she learned to laugh like that, how she _could_  laugh like that.   
  
Because she never had, and she’d never expected to.  
  
She took off running.   
  
She slipped and slid precariously down the slick downgrade; the threads of her boots had long ago been filled with mud and were unable to provide her with the traction this terrain required.   
  
But she hardly cared - she’d _roll herself_  down the hill like a puffer pig in heat, if need be.   
  
Her thighs burned and abs ached with the effort of staying upright, but she was able to somehow make it down the hill in one piece. She paused at the base of the decline to catch her breath and looked again at the cottage. From her new point of view only three yards away, Rey realized that the windows were in fact raised much further off the ground than they had initially appeared to be.   
  
Biting her lip, she slowly approached the side window and delicate placing her palms flat upon the warm and wet stone ledge, using it as leverage to hoist herself up to her tippiest toes, taking care to root the balls of her feet firmly in the soft ground so that she would not slip.   
  
She tilted her head upwards and rested her chin on the ledge as she peered through the pane.   
  
She could see clearly, now.  
  
The Rey she saw this time was several years older than she was now - twenty-two, maybe even twenty-three. Her face was unmistakably rounder, her chin less pointed and her cheeks plump. It was strange seeing herself like that; hunger had always been a staple of her reality, and she’d always been one bad scavenge away from starvation.   
  
But she liked how this Rey looked: her skin softer and clearer, her eyes less cavernous, her neckline less hollow. Her lilac tunic draped across her body, flowy and loose everywhere.   
  
Everywhere except her midsection, where the cloth wrinkled and pulled across her swollen belly, which was being cradled caringly by the kneeling man. His cheek was pressed against her round abdomen, his strong hands resting on the small of her back, his muscular arms wrapped around her waist. He held her closely, tightly, as if to ensure that she’d never leave, that he’d never let go.  
  
The rain came down harder now, soaking her entirely. Her arms shook and her knees threatened to buckle, but she refused to let go, refused to walk away, refused to pretend like this wasn’t what she’d always wanted, no matter how unlikely it had seemed.  
  
So she remained steadfast, enraptured as she watched Kylo’s mouth move, his lips tracing shapes along the top of Rey’s belly, his murmured words too soft to decipher over the sound of the water crashing against the sharp crags of the hulking cliffs.   
  
Rey was running her fingers through his raven locks, her eyes filled with bottomless affection and deep devotion as she smiled down at the man who was her everything, the man who was the father of her child, the man who was her reason for existing:  
  
_Ben_.   
  
It was too much, all of it.   
  
So she let go.   
  
Rey collapsed to the ground, her body rattling with the violent sobs wracking her heart and mind and soul. She needed to _go_ , to be somewhere else, anywhere that wasn’t here.   
  
But it was too late to run away or to pretend it didn’t happen or act like it didn’t matter.   
  
She’d seen it. All of it.  
  
His future.  
  
Her future.   
  
_Their_ future.   
  
Together, they had been happy.   
  
Together, they _would be_  happy.   
  
And she would see to it that nothing stood in their way.  
  
  
. . .

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first attempt at "fluff." 
> 
> Thank you for reading - I hope you enjoyed. :)


End file.
